"Mr. Moseley, I will sing at your concert gladly, if Aunt Lizzie will let me," she said, at length.
"Thank you, my dear. I felt sure you would. Well, I shall call at the Mill House shortly. You will soon run home from here?"
"Oh yes," assented Mavis.
They had reached the vicarage gate, and, having shaken hands with her companion, and put her arms around Max's neck and given him an affectionate hug, she hastened on. She felt very light-hearted, and hummed a little tune happily to herself as she tripped along. But her voice suddenly ceased as she neared the Mill House and caught sight of a man's figure ahead of her, clad in a ragged suit of clothes. A pang of pity shot through her sympathetic heart.
"I suppose he's a tramp or a beggar," she thought, "he looks dreadfully poor."
The man turned at the sound of her light footsteps, and looked at her. She saw his face was pinched and blue with the cold, and that it wore a very wretched, dispirited expression. As she caught up to him, he spoke.
"Have you a penny you could spare me, missie?" he said, in a voice which sounded weak, she thought. He was quite a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, but extremely thin.
"No, I haven't," she replied, regretfully. "Oh, I'm so sorry! You do look miserably cold."
"Aye, I'm cold," he agreed, with a short, bitter laugh, "cold and hungry, too."
"Hungry? Oh dear, how dreadful! Do you live here—at W— I mean?"